TP-Based Team Attacks

[Whiona 310]

Since my game uses a simple turn-based battle system (Yanfly's Ace Battle Engine specifically), I'm trying to think of ways to make the battles more interesting for players so that they don't get dull. I want to add team skills, as in skills that two party members use simultaneously, with DoubleX's script. However, instead of introducing this as just a fun add-on, I want it to be a core battle mechanic.

 

Here are the basic ideas that I have so far:

• The game will be balanced so that team skills are necessary to win against bosses and tough enemies without grinding (or really good luck).
• Of the 8 party members, every potential pair of characters will have team skills available. Maybe 2-3 per pair?
• They will cost TP rather than MP so that the player can't just spam them and chug mana potions to quickly win battles. They're a valuable resource and must be used carefully!
• There will of course be lots of regular old single-character skills that cost MP. They'll be enough on their own to beat weaker enemies, and will have to be used intelligently alongside the team skills to win difficult battles.
• Some team skills will unlock on level-up, and some will unlock as the story progresses and a bond develops between the characters.

Do you think that this sounds fun and interesting? Are there potential pitfalls that I haven't addressed? Any and all suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated!!

Edited January 21, 2015 by Whiona

[+ Retired 274]

It's an interesting mechanic, I sense tales of vibes.

 

One thing to consider is how TP gain is calculated and do you gain TP at start (which is default behaviour).

[Whiona 310]

It's an interesting mechanic, I sense tales of vibes.

 

One thing to consider is how TP gain is calculated and do you gain TP at start (which is default behaviour).

 

That's something I'm still working out. A bit of TP gain at the start of each turn probably wouldn't be a bad idea, since certain characters might get hit by enemies more often than others (there are provoke and stealth skills). I might also create 'stalling' skills that allow the player to skip an action that turn, but gain extra TP. It's all pretty rough for now, since I haven't implemented the system yet.

[DJBailey 19]

Hi Whiona,

 

That sounds like a great way to freshen up your combat!  I wasn't sure about one thing: Is TP going to be a party-based resource, or will each character have their own TP?

 

I think the only pitfall that I can think of is that in a party of 8, if each pair has 2 double-techs they can use, that makes for 54 possible 2-character combos. Between those and the single-character skills, it will be challenging to make all the skills relevant and balanced.  Not impossible, but it'll be a lot to keep track of.  Your user-interface will also need to be nicely organized to allow for easy navigation for the player. Make sure you take the time to plan your GUI.

 

Should make for a fun addition to combat! I'm looking forward to seeing your game,

[Whiona 310]

Hi Whiona,

 

That sounds like a great way to freshen up your combat!  I wasn't sure about one thing: Is TP going to be a party-based resource, or will each character have their own TP?

 

I think the only pitfall that I can think of is that in a party of 8, if each pair has 2 double-techs they can use, that makes for 54 possible 2-character combos. Between those and the single-character skills, it will be challenging to make all the skills relevant and balanced.  Not impossible, but it'll be a lot to keep track of.  Your user-interface will also need to be nicely organized to allow for easy navigation for the player. Make sure you take the time to plan your GUI.

 

Should make for a fun addition to combat! I'm looking forward to seeing your game,

 

It would be great if I could make TP party-based, but I'm not actually sure how to go about that. For the time being, I'm working under the assumption that each character will have their own reserve. To balance it, maybe the character with a vanish state (who will get hit less often) can gain a little extra TP per turn, whereas the character with a provoke state (who will get hit more often) can gain a little less. Hopefully it'll all run smoothly when I test it out.

 

That's a good point! I'll definitely make sure the GUI is user-friendly. To keep the skill count manageable, perhaps they could deal (or heal) damage in percentages rather than set numbers. That way I won't have to replace skills as the game progresses because they won't necessarily become obsolete. Instead, you'll simply gain a wider variety of abilities that do different things, and are helpful in different situations. Also, maybe characters who don't have as much of a relationship can only have one skill together, and I'll give two skills to the ones who are closer friends. That could help keep my total number of skills down.

 

Thanks for your feedback and support!

[Kayzee 4,032]

Yanfly also has a script that let's each party member learn new ways of gaining TP. I always kinda liked the idea of party members each having their own way of gaining TP, some for attacking, some for evading attacks, and so on. I like it when each party member can have different roles or positions in a formation with different effects. I think it would be fun to add that to a TP based multi-tech system myself. It might end up being sort of complex but I think it would be the right kind of complex, just complex enough to make you think but not necessarily tedious enough that you have to micro manage all that much.

 

I kinda don't like the idea of a shared party TP system, if only because I always thought that having a shared party resourced didn't actually make much sense in a game's universe. On the other hand you could say the same thing about TP in general. What exactly is TP anyway? Built up rage? How do people channel it to make attacks? I guess normal TP can just be thought of as charging some kind of chi and releasing it into an attack. Is shared TP Morale then? How do attacks use it up then? Very few games actually bother to explain this kind of stuff, and it kinda bugs me. Maybe I am just being silly, but I always think battle systems should try to be abstractions based on the actual physics or metaphysics of the fictional universe. I mean, spells taking some sort of abstract stored mystical energy to use make sense, attacks taking some form of stamina makes sense, but the concept of TP gets way way too abstract and gamey to really connect to what the characters are actually doing sometimes.

 

Though putting that aside, the other problem with shared TP is I think it sort of doesn't feel that tactical to me. Most games I know that use a party resource like that for attacking feel more like you have some kind of cheat system you can use every x rounds or so rather then having a special situational tactic you can use if you work to get yourself in the right position. I think multitechs should be something you have to work for, something where you have a special synergy between party members that you can exploit to turn the tables. One of the reasons I kinda like the idea of each party member having different ways of gaining TP actually, you have to work at figuring out the optimal way to make each party member work together. If it all went into a shared pool, it wouldn't matter what each individual party member did as much.

[Whiona 310]

Yanfly also has a script that let's each party member learn new ways of gaining TP. I always kinda liked the idea of party members each having their own way of gaining TP, some for attacking, some for evading attacks, and so on. I like it when each party member can have different roles or positions in a formation with different effects. I think it would be fun to add that to a TP based multi-tech system myself. It might end up being sort of complex but I think it would be the right kind of complex, just complex enough to make you think but not necessarily tedious enough that you have to micro manage all that much.

 

I like this idea! It adds just a bit more complexity without overwhelming the player. I could have TP gain play into each character's strength, be it attacking, defending, healing, evading, or what have you. I didn't quite understand the TP Manager from its description on Yanfly's site, but now I get what the TP modes mean. Thanks for the suggestion and I'll see about implementing this. (You're right, shared TP would be far too easy.)

Edited January 21, 2015 by Whiona

[Kayzee 4,032]

You are very welcome! I am glad to help! *sprinkles fairy dust on you*

Edited January 21, 2015 by KilloZapit

[+ Samji 2]

Try Sons of Arcadia - Vanished souls at halfdonut.com.

It's using this system.

Edited March 31, 2015 by Samji

[HumanNinja 144]

The idea of having team- or dual-skills is a nice one. But according to your OP you're looking for ways to enhance battles so they don't get bland and, you also state that the team-skills will be meant for boss battles. My question is: How do you plan to keep all the other trash mob battles from becoming stale? If team-skills are going to require a build of TP before they can be used then they will be pretty much irrelevant in regular battles. So in a sense, you're not really solving your problem by adding team-skills alone.

[Whiona 310]

You raise a good point, HumanNinja. I wanted to implement the TP-based system specifically so that boss battles do not feel stale. There's nothing I hate more than bosses that just feel like a normal enemy, but with extra HP and harder-hitting attacks. Of course, individual bosses would require different strategies as well, but it seemed like a good way to generally differentiate them from regular battles. Also, considering the game is focused around relationships (both romantic and platonic), it would also function as a way to show that the characters' relationship has progressed. I think it's pretty neat when games integrate story and combat in unique ways, so I've been thinking about how I could do it myself.

 

As for the other trash mob battles, I'd prevent them from becoming stale in other ways: include a wide variety of enemies, give them interesting skills, and most importantly, make sure the encounters aren't too frequent. I'll probably go the route of something like Persona 4, where you may not be fighting an enemy every five steps, but the battles are a bit longer and require some degree of strategy. I find that I don't tire of those encounters as much. (Of course, you can still mow through them once your characters are powerful enough, which is fun too - but only because you had once struggled against them.) In any case, the TP system is not the only way that I would make battles more interesting, just one of the ways.

 

Another possibility I've been considering is that TP could build up rather quickly and the team skills would be usable during regular battles, but the strongest skills require a lot of TP, so they would likely be reserved by the player for boss battles and such. This would add another layer of depth to regular encounters, but it would also make boss battles feel a little less unique, so I'm not 100% sure what I should do there. If you have any thoughts on this, or anything else I've said, I'd really appreciate hearing them!

Edited March 31, 2015 by Whiona

[+ CVincent 234]

I like this idea, but if possible it'd be a neat mix to use both TP and MP as costs.

Alternatively you can also use Yanfly's Skill Cost Manager script which should in theory also allow you to make combo skills cost items if you desire.

 

It'd be interesting if enemies could also do the same thing, to make things even more interesting. I think Chrono Trigger did this quite well and it's worth looking at in deeper detail if you're willing to go a few extra miles to make your combat more interesting.

[Whiona 310]

I hadn't thought about giving enemies TP, but that's something that I should definitely look into. I'll also consider the TP and MP mix. Chrono Trigger is one of those games that I started ages ago and never finished - thank you for giving me incentive to pick it up again!

[HumanNinja 144]

An idea I had is to make the quick build up of TP possible but at a cost. This way the player could choose whether or not it's worth it. If the player is fighting against a stubborn trash mob, maybe they could use a skill that builds TP at a rapid rate but at the cost of losing HP for the character. This would be an appropriate give-and-take scenario in a trash mob battle but probably not a good idea against a boss that deals much more damage. Or, in lieu of the HP loss the character may suffer some type of debuff or negative status ailment as a result of the quick TP build up and execution of a skill.

 

As an example, you could create a skill that costs 0 MP that maxes out the characters TP and allows for execution of a team-skill. However, the character that initiated this team-skill would be unable to act for the next 2 turns. This would be a viable option in a trash mob battle seeing as the team-skill would probably wipe the mob. But, if you did this against a boss, you would probably suffer without the actions of that character for the next 2 turns so it would be in the player's interest to build up TP the old fashioned way when fighting a boss.

[Whiona 310]

That's an interesting idea! I like it a lot. It would give the player a way to quickly tear through mobs they're tired of fighting. On the other hand, if they get overconfident and aren't quite strong enough to wipe out the mob in one hit yet, there will be consequences. I'll see what I can do with this.